This week, I’m doing something a bit different, and I’m answering some reader mail! As you may know, I’ve been leaving my email address at the bottom of this column for some time now; with always the offer to do something with a card of your choice (provided, of course, that you email me.)

Well, I get a few emails now and then (mostly with deck questions or people wanting advice), but now and again I get people emailing me asking me to use a card, a “dollar bin rare” in my next article. This week, I’ll be doing just that.

Getting email from readers is kind of like getting Legos for Christmas. I love Legos, but you still have to put them together after you get them. That’s the fun of Legos, though. The same goes for emails from you guys. I love to get them, and most of the time, they ask me to build a deck around a card or a combo. And that’s awesome. So, starting from February and working forward, here are a few of your letters.

Hi,

I have been reading your articles at Magic Deck Vortex to do with Raiding the Dollar Bins. I also found your details at the bottom of the page that said we can send you ideas. So without further ado, I was wondering if you could make a deck using Monkey Cage.

Sincerely,
*A Reader*

Well, alright, let’s have a go at it!

Monkey Cage is a very interesting card, mostly because you can do really well by it, or, if you’re in the wrong spot, you can get royally shafted by an opponent. Playing Monkey Cage takes a bit of finesse, and more importantly, a way to get an expensive creature into play on the cheap.

Well, I’m not a genius, but as soon as I saw this card, Lorwyn and Time Spiral crossed my mind. Evoke and suspend are both ways you can play creatures for really cheap, even if their converted mana cost is really high! The problem with evoke is you have to have the mana on the spot AFTER you pay five mana for a Monkey Cage. So, if you want to make a five mana monkey party and do it before you get squashed, you need to be playing some acceleration. Let’s take a look at the deck.

The idea of this deck is fairly simple; you’re going to try to play Monkey Cage, and then you’re going to evoke one of your Elementals (Spitebellows or Ingot Chewer) to get five or six Monkey tokens (respectively). In your early turns, you play out as many Izzet Signets and Mind Stones as you possibly can, making sure you can ramp up to enough mana for the costly Cage and the evoke cost you need to get a good number of Monkeys out of it.

Thirst for Knowledge is a key player here, for a few reasons. It helps you draw through the deck to find either a Monkey Cage or a Fabricate, and it lets you play some serious card draw in your opponent’s end of turn step. This is a huge advantage to other three-card drawers like Compulsive Research and Sift, and that’s why I’ve picked it for this deck. You want to spend your third turn pretending to have a counterspell, not playing card draw. Thirst for Knowledge is so good; it’s one of the reasons why I’ve added artifact lands to the deck.

The artifact lands actually serve a few purposes in this deck. Firstly, artifact lands are tutorable through Fabricate, so if you need an additional land, you can use Fabricate to find one. Secondly, you can use them with Trash for Treasure. I’ll explain more on this in a moment. Finally, they give you an additional outlet for Thirst for Knowledge’s discard ability, which is always nice.

Now, let’s talk about this Trash for Treasure shtick that I mentioned in the last paragraph. Trash for Treasure is one of my favorite “There’s No Way I Could Ever Use This Rare” cards. It’s got a very cool effect, but it really needs a deck tailored around it. In this deck, it does a few little sneaky tricks that can really make the difference between just barely winning and throttling your opponent.

If you have a Monkey Cage in hand as well as Trash for Treasure and Thirst for Knowledge, you can use Monkey Cage as the Thirst for Knowledge discard. As long as you have some other artifact in play (such as Izzet Signet or any of the artifact lands), you can sacrifice it and get the Monkey Cage back for three mana! This really speeds up the whole process, so if you can do it, then do it. Also, Trash for Treasure lets you get back a Monkey Cage you’ve already used, so you can play your combo again for more Ape tokens.

Things to Remember

1) Goad your opponent by making the Monkey Cage seem like a way to keep them off of their creature drops. If you get lucky and your opponent becomes afraid of the Monkey Cage, you could have enough time to pay full price for a Spitebellows or Errant Ephemeron and get the 6/1 or 4/4 flier in addition to your 12 or 14 power worth of Ape tokens. This trick will only work a few times before your opponent wizens up.

2) Even without the Monkey Cage, you need to start suspending creatures ASAP. This deck has problems with aggressive decks. Try to get creatures like the Ephemeron out as soon as possible so you can stem the bleeding a bit until you can get the combo to go off. If you can’t get the combo, you can still do some major damage with your suspend creatures.

3) Manage your mana correctly. Deciding which lands you want to tap for playing a spell can be very important—especially when you have so many things to choose from. Make sure you keep the mana open you need to evoke a Spitebellows or play that Thirst for Knowledge. Even the smallest decisions like which land to tap can have a profound effect on the game you play.

Card Suggestions

Any evoke and suspend creatures are good for this deck. Suspend creatures can be a bit tricky, but creatures like Greater Gargadon and Nihilith would be great (since you can semi-control when they come into play). One thing you might think about playing if you like suspend more than evoke would be something like Fury Charm. It allows you to remove suspend counters during your turn, right after you get done playing the Monkey Cage. I couldn’t make it fit in this deck, but if you switched to only suspend cards, then perhaps you could find a spot for this card in the deck.

If you’re more of an evoke fan, Mulldrifter and Shriekmaw are both amazing Evokers that can get the job done and give you an added bonus. If you are going to splash Black, lands like Sulfur Vent and Terramorphic Expanse are excellent choices.

That’s all for this week. Check back next week as I dip into the mailbags again to check out some emails that are asking for a buyback. Until next time, never forget about those dollar bins. You’ll have more fun, and your wallet will thank you.

~Death_By_Beebles

Alex Hoffman has been parading around with the pseudonym of Death_By_Beebles for three years now. He’s a writer for Magic Deck Vortex, and can often be found tinkering with his latest decks and studying for biochemistry. He is the author of Raiding the Dollar Bins and Going Blind series at MDV, and the recent startup series Pauper Chronicles. Alex likes kittens, reading, and generally enjoying life. He doesn’t like Brussels sprouts. You can send him deck ideas, combos and suggestions at deathbybeebles@yahoo.com.

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Articles Spotlights from 2008:
How to Win with Milling: A Guide to a Slow Painful Death
Memories of an Old Magic Player 10: The Outsiders Journal #3.
The Apprentice Magician, Part Three.
Class-Wars Deckbuilding Contest Results!
Tribal Coffee: The Smaller Tribes.
[Mini-Article] Controlling the Game: Without Blue.
Raiding the Dollar Bins: Return of the Vault Ninja.
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
More Evil Than Evil.
Memories of a Jarhead.